Time to Go Home

We slept OK and I got up at 5:30 to take my shower and finish packing our backpacks and carry-on. We ate a quick last buffet breakfast and were ready to disembark by our appointed time of 8:45 a.m. We found our other 3 bags, got through customs and found our transportation to the airport. We were NOT in a hurry since our flight didn’t leave till 3 pm.

After going through the line TWICE (you can’t check your bags for Southwest until 4 hours before your flight), we found restrooms and Tony listened to his voice mails. Mom & Dad’s flight didn’t leave for a while so we went down to their concourse to kill some time until they left. Then on the way back to our concourse we discovered a Chinese food place that had orange chicken! We’ve all fallen in love with orange chicken recently. We decided that’s what we wanted for “supper.” We stopped at the Children’s Play Area for about 45 minutes and Meighan ran the whole time. When it was time to go to our gate, Tony went and got some orange chicken, picked us up and we were off to our gate. We left on time. Meighan slept most of the flight waking up to eat some chicken. I was getting sicker.

We stopped in Denver and assumed we just stayed on the plane. Not so this time. Our flight number stayed the same but we had to change aircraft. Turned out the aircraft we had to change to had to have some maintenance. We ended up getting home 2 hours later than we were originally scheduled. And our bags and the stroller didn’t get transferred. So we had to take the time to make a claim and have it delivered the next day.

On the way to Victoria and Walking in Victoria

Today we slept in! We ate a leisurely breakfast. At 1 pm we went up to Club HAL to participate in the Family Photo Scavenger Hunt. We had 30 minutes to take as many pictures from the list as we could. We came in “2nd runner up” and received a Holland America reusable camera – with film that expired 3/2008. We’ll see how that comes out!

Meighan took a nap and I packed and we arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, about 6 pm. I wasn’t planning to get off the ship but because I was well along in packing, we decided to go ashore. We were going to take a taxi but we needed a bigger vehicle because of Meighan and the fact that they have a seat belt law. Also it was kind of expensive. We decided to walk and see what we could see.

We ended up following the map to Victoria’s Fisherman’s Wharf area. It was evening so most businesses were closed but there are all kinds of house boats of all sizes and shapes there! And we also saw cute little water taxis stop in the area where we were. They were the cutest things!

We moseyed through there a little bit and then made our way back to the ship. My throat was starting to feel scratchy. Not a good thing. We got our 3 bags packed and locked up and put outside our room well before the deadline of 1 a.m.

Ketchikan

We docked in Ketchikan about 7:00 or so till 12:30 pm. A short time this time. Our tour today was the Ketchikan Duck Tour. Our driver and narrator were great and told lots of jokes – some good, some groaners. It was a good tour. We drove through Ketchikan and then the “duck” drove into the harbor where we saw lots of seaplanes taking off and landing.

It rained pretty hard while we shopped but we stopped in a store called “Christmas in Alaska.” In the back, Meighan found Santa! She sat on his lap, gave him a hug and kiss and he gave her a candy cane. Very special!

Back on the ship we went “swimming” in the hot tub again and hung around on the ship. Our next stop is Victoria, British Columbia tomorrow about 6 pm.

Sitka

We did not sign up for any tours for today. We just decided to walk around town and sight see. There’s a historic Russian Orthodox church right in the middle of downtown. I wanted to go in and see it but they wanted $5 per person. I guess not.

We explored the shops, a Christmas shop, the Ben Franklin (lots of souvenirs here – normal and silly), I walked into a quilt shop for a couple of minutes, saw a yarn shop (way too expensive!), ran into Dave & Barb & the kids. We walked a ways with them into another shop but we got done before they did so we moved on.

About this time Meighan was beginning to get tired – OVER tired! I had seen a sign for “Alaska Dream Ice Cream Bars.” We checked it out. They are ice cream on a stick HAND DIPPED (in front of you) in Belgian chocolate or white chocolate and rolled in crushed nuts and toffee. Mmmmmmmm!

We finished our ice cream and Tony picked Meighan up who was fighting going to sleep. Almost back to the tender loading area, she finally fell asleep and slept until we got back to our room. Of course she woke up when he laid her down. Oh, well. A little nap is better than no nap!

Tonight was another formal night in the dining room and the night Mom & Dad wanted to celebrate their anniversary and take a formal picture. The meal took FOREVER. When we finally were done, we went to take pictures at two different places. We wanted to give them our gift earlier rather than later but they wanted to go see the show in the lounge. So we did that and then we all came to our stateroom. Lindsay & Tyler showed up and we had them open their scrapbook. They were very surprised. We told them it’s not done yet because there’s more cards to add (that they received at their anniversary time in April).

(The following post was written in a notebook but not actually posted on the blog until we received our referral because we didn’t tell our family that we were in process. We waited until we had the referral for our son before we published on the blog because we wanted to do this “covertly” and have it be a surprise to as many people as possible.)

(Added Aug. 7) Lindsay & Tyler wanted to get back to their friends but we had one more thing we wanted to do. We kept the video running and asked what everyone’s favorite part of the cruise was so far. Barb liked the whale watching, Lindsay like meeting new friends, Dave & Tyler like the zip line they would be doing tomorrow(!), Mom like spending time with all of us, Dad liked sleeping! Then Tony thanked them for taking us all on the cruise and letting us relax a while. Then he turned the camera on me but I said to keep it on Mom & Dad. I said “Well, we didn’t get to see many whales on Tuesday because we were taking phone calls and checking emails and (showing them the picture) this is our son!”

Mom’s reaction was TOTAL surprise. Of course we hadn’t told them we were in process and we’d kind of made the fundraising savings account LOOK like we didn’t have much saved yet. NOW it looks WAY better because we got the adoption tax credit refund and on Friday before we left, we received a letter from Show Hope that we’d gotten a grant—a significant grant—and the two together will cover the next amount we have to pay Holt! It’s a GOD THING! Now all we need is travel money and post-adoption report money!

Dad said “Ask me again what my favorite part of the cruise is!”

We all went up to the Observation Deck so they could see the other pictures of Le An. Wow! This is a lot lifted off my shoulders! I’ve been wanting to tell them we were in process for a while but still wanted the referral to be a surprise.

Juneau!

We finally arrived at our first port of call today. Juneau! The capital of Alaska. We had to get up pretty early to eat breakfast because we had booked a shore excursion. It was called “History Gold Panning Adventure.” We first had a short tour of Juneau and then stopped at Gold Creek. Somewhere near where we were is where gold was discovered ay back when. Our guide went to go get our gold panning equipment, did a quick demonstration of how to pan, showed us what we were looking for and then gave us each pans. Since you are “guaranteed to find gold” we are pretty sure the first pans were “loaded.” There were quite a few flakes of gold in the first pans. Any subsequent pans had 1, maybe 2, flakes of gold. Maybe even none! Anyway, it was interesting to learn how to pan for gold. Hard work, actually, for as little as you find!

We got back on the bus and were driven back to the ship. (sentence added on Aug. 7) We ran up to the Observation Deck to send our LOI (which we had prepared last night).  We ate lunch and then went back to shore and did some shopping. We ended up getting a couple of really nice pieces! Very beautiful!

We were docked n Juneau until 7:30 pm and then we set off for Sitka.

At Sea and Glacier Bay

Today was interesting.

We went to a gemstone seminar and learned all about picking out diamonds and tanzanite, etc. Actually quite interesting!

About noon we started to enter Glacier Bay National Park. They travelled very slowly as per National Park regulations and to not disturb anything. I think it was about 4 pm or so that we stopped at the Marjorie Glacier.

They stopped with the glacier on one side of the ship for 20 minutes so that we could watch for calving (ice falling off the glacier) and to listen to the glacier. The glacier is continuously “cracking” (the native people call it “White Thunder” and that’s what it sounds like!) and this particular glacier they say recedes 6-9 FEET PER DAY! Then they turned the ship so that the other side could watch for calving and hear the glacier. After they turned the ship, I went up to the Observation Deck to check email and THEN is when I saw larger chunks of glacier calve. Darn! I didn’t get it on video!

We also had a very good thing happen today! More on that later!

(The following post was written in a notebook but not actually posted on the blog until we received our referral because we didn’t tell our family that we were in process. We waited until we had the referral for our son before we published on the blog because we wanted to do this “covertly” and have it be a surprise to as many people as possible.)

It’s LATER! (added to post on Aug. 7)

About 10:55 this morning my phone started playing the tone that said I had a voice mail. Hmmm… I was able to have service long enough to check the message and call them back. We got cut off but had heard enough. We had a referral for a son and I needed to check email within 15 minutes! We ran up to the Observation Deck, signed in and eventually found the pictures of OUR SON!

We had known it was a possibility that CCOP referrals could happen the week of the cruise so we were prepared. I had doctors lined up to email just in case we needed more specialized opinions. I emailed our pediatrician. That’s all! No real obvious problems! He said he looked good, the medical info looked good and he and the nurses thought he was REALLY CUTE! The “special need” is possible delayed growth and development. But also, they think he may have grown out of that now. Hmmm… OK! What we are wondering is, with no physical problems, why was he abandoned? We’ve come up with a couple scenarios such as maybe his birth mom was single or maybe he was a 2nd (or 3rd) child? We’ll never know for sure, of course.

ANYWAY… his name is Xu Le An (pronounced “Shoo Luh On”), he is in an orphanage in Xuchang City in Henan Province. This means when we go to bring him home, we will go to his province before going to Guangzhou this time. We are not going to post his pictures (we have 3!) on the blog until we get further along in the process but if you are local, you can find us, our parents or our siblings and we all have pictures.

We waited till the next day to send our Letter of Intent to Holt. They eventually received it despite the slow satellite internet of the ship.

At Sea

Today was a day “at sea.” I didn’t sleep very well last night due to the noise of the wind outside our stateroom. We looked around the ship more and in the evening for dinner, it was a formal dinner night and we ate together in the dining room to celebrate Lindsay turning 16!

We also attended a shopping seminar in the morning while Meighan went to Club HAL. Tony went and got her when Club HAL closed for lunch and brought her to the seminar. Timing was perfect because after they got back, the shopping experts on stage started throwing out free stuff. Some things they couldn’t throw so they left them on the stage. We told Meighan to go get them and one at a time and with a little encouragement, she eventually came back with 3 items from Del Sol – a Frisbee that changes color from clear to blue in the sun, nail polish that changes from silver to gold and a coin that also changes colors. Everyone thought she was so cute running up to get those things!

Space Needle and Bon Voyage!

We ate the free breakfast at the hotel (and it was worth every penny!). We loaded back up in to the car and drove downtown. Mom really wanted to go up in the Space Needle so we took time to do that. The view was wonderful! We even could see our ship from up there! While at the top of the Space Needle, someone caught my attention and asked if we were from Omaha. Yes! The she asked if we went to St. Andrew’s! I said “Yes! Who are you?” She told me and I recognized her name but didn’t know what she looked like. They had just gotten off the Princess Cruise to Alaska! Wow! You never know who you’ll see where! (By the way, she said she recognized us because of Meighan! That’s normal! Everyone remembers Meighan!)

So we saw what we wanted to see at the Space Needle and got in the car to go find some gas. Later, we realized there were gas stations right there but we’d missed them. We turned in the car and got a shuttle to the pier. We got checked in and found our staterooms. We all had upgraded last week for a small fee so instead of being on Deck 1 with rooms all together, we were now on Deck 6 in a handicapped room (meaning BIGGER!) in the front of the ship. Mom & Dad were 2 decks below us (almost straight down) and Dave & Barb’s rooms were on Deck 4 way in the back. We all have verandahs with the upgrade. Very nice!

The first thing we did (after we found our rooms and Mom & Dad came to see our room and we went to see their room and flowers and balloons that we sent them) was to go EAT! It was time to eat anyway. Then we went up on deck outside and explored the ship. We found Club HAL where kids of various ages go for their own activities and we found the Explorer’s Lounge that had the library, internet café and seats to just watch the ocean go by.

We were outside as we started pulling out of port. It was quite windy but we were enjoying the cooler temperatures!

Vacation!

We got up early today to catch our flight to Seattle. We arrived in Seattle at 11 a.m. and my parents arrived around the same time. We found each other and got our rental car and drove to our hotel. We unloaded and then headed to downtown Seattle.

We eventually found a place to park (not an easy feat!) and then started walking. I had heard a lot about Pike Place Fish Market so we eventually found that. They throw huge fish to each other when someone buys one. I was actually kind of disappointed at how small the place was. It’s just a small area inside the Pike Place Market that has lots of small shops and galleries and restaurants.

We made our way over to the Space Needle only to find out that it was an hour wait. Since it was around 6 pm already, we decided to head back to the hotel.

Background Check Updates

(The following post was written in a notebook but not actually posted on the blog until we received our referral because we didn’t tell our family that we were in process. We waited until we had the referral for our son before we published on the blog because we wanted to do this “covertly” and have it be a surprise to as many people as possible.)

We went and got fingerprinted by the Nebraska State Patrol again today. We have to keep our background checks up-to-date until the adoption is finalized.